


Distant and Dead

by Townycod13



Category: South Park
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:16:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Townycod13/pseuds/Townycod13
Summary: Three times Kyle thought 'oh' and realized something painful.





	Distant and Dead

**Author's Note:**

> stream of consciousness writing to warm up

He's keeping to himself.

Kyle doesn't know why it strikes him as so suddenly strange but there's the relaxed figure of Kenny McCormick, off to the side of the crowd.

Perhaps the holiday's make it seem stranger. It's a time where people gather and bond over a shared enjoyment of a culturally accepted yearly event. Everyone should be gathering and chatting and saying what they're thankful for.

Nevermind the problematic history behind the holiday or the hipocrasy that goes into celebrating, those sorts of details might bother Kyle himself or perhaps Wendy Testaburger off in the corner chatting with Token, but those sorts of things had never been a Kenny thing to care about.

Nevertheless while everyone else is gathering, he's off to the side.

And then he's gone. Like he'd never shown up to begin with. An army of angry turkey's make off with the corpse of some random victim.

Kyle wonders why Kenny ditched early.

Two weeks later he realizes that it's becoming a pattern.

Kyle's hanging around Stan, predictably, who is predictably arguing with Craig over something dumb, and Jimmy is predictably cracking some jokes while Timmy nearly jokes to death on his own giggles. Cartman and Heidi are being predictably gross and Clyde is predictably bothering Token.

And Kenny is predictably off in the corner alone.

His mouth forms the words, fear fuels them, but he doesn't complete them because Kenny's gone again.

Before long it feels like Kenny's gone more often than he's there.

The strange hole in his emotions seems to form a gorge and it's a loss he can't fill.

He ends up trying.

"Hey, guys, should we hang out with Butters more?"

Butters is laughing like a goof with Dougie off to the side.

Stan shrugs, "Sure, why not."

It doesn't work.

"Well, ya see fellas, the more time I spend around you guys, the more I get grounded and golly, I'm just tired of it."

Tweek turns them down straightforward. Anxiety bubbling forth in an ugly burst of emotion, "OH, sothatyou assholes can fucking ditchmeagain?! Fuck off."

Kyle reasons it's Cartman scaring people off. It has to be Cartman but Cartman hasn't hung out with them at all lately, preferring the company of his turbulent relationship.

"Stan," Stan doesn't bother looking up from his game, "Are we assholes?"

"Nah, of course not." it's a thoughtless answer to a thoughtless question.

"Then why doesn't Kenny want to hang out with us anymore?"

Stan finally puts down the game and his expression is somber, Kyle can't quite understand it, "Dude... Kenny's dead."

Oh.

Obviously. Of course Kenny is dead.

How could he forget something like that?

"Stan... did we go to the funeral?"

"Of course we--" he pauses, thoughts catching up to his words, there are foggy memories of funerals past but whatever decaying section of the mind they rose from don't match with the reality as he knows it so they're dismissed, "Huh, I guess we didn't go."

"...why wouldn't we go to Kenny's funeral? Did we even grieve?"

It occurred to Kyle that if he had forgotten a close friends death, not bothered with the funeral, and subsequently tried to replace him, that made him an asshole. Stan said they weren't assholes though. Stan was probably right.

"Uhh... shit, Kyle, you might be right. I think we're assholes."

Stan was definitely right.

What could be done to rectify the situation? Nothing. Of course nothing could be done. Kenny is dead and there's no turning back that clock. No bringing back the dead.

Still, the guilt gnawing away at his gut couldn't be ignored. What could be done?

"Kenny had a younger sister, right?" it was another sign of his shittiness that he wasn't even sure. Stan wasn't sure either.

A week later and they'd found Karen McCormick. A thin fourteen year old girl working at a gas station. Kyle wouldn't have even recalled he wanted to meet her if he hadn't noticed her nametag while he was filling up.

What kind of asshole was he for forgetting about something so simple?

"You're... Kenny's little sister, right?"

She looks surprised, not unhappy, just far too used to the humdrum chitter of polite customers and smarmy comments of the rude to register the question immediately.

"Yeah?"

Bringing up her recently diseased brother while she was on the job was probably a bad idea, he realizes a bit too slow. He makes a point to buy her a snack while he checks out as an apology. He didn't expect much of a response.

He wasn't expecting a sunshine smile to split her face and he wondered when was the last time he'd seen that same smile on Kenny's face.

He'd missed that smile.

He knows he's a pretty good older brother and Stan could be if he had the opportunity so he makes the executive decision to show up to this station more often, say hi at school here and there. She lost her brother so she could probably use the company.

And that works fine for awhile.

"Studying at work again?" he feels a little proud that the girl is so dedicated. He wonders about Kenny's study habits. He'd never seen the boy study to his recollection but his grades didn't seem to have suffered.

She smiles, somewhat sad, "Kenny wouldn't forgive me if I didn't give my all. Don't try: do."

She said it like it was something that Kenny had said often and Kyle felt his guilt gnaw further inside that he'd never heard the boy say such words.

How well had he known Kenny McCormick?

"Kevin!" if Karen smiled when he'd given her the first snack, she was glowing now and Kyle felt himself pushed to the background of scene as the siblings embraced.

Right. Karen already had an older brother. Kenny also had an older brother. How could he forget something like that.

Stan's room is a welcome reprieve. Complete familiarity and no surprises, guilty cloying, or vague feelings of rejection. Just Stan, himself, and the sounds of Shelley's current musical taste from the other room.

"Stan?"

"Hm?"

"How well did we know Kenny?"

Stan blinks, confusion on his face, "Pretty fucking well I'd say, we grew up together. Why are you talking about him in the past tense, dude?"

Kyle takes a turn at confusion, "Because Kenny's dead?"

"Then who's sitting at my desk, dude?"

Oh.

Of course Kenny is alive.

Why would he think Kenny was dead?

Kenny's blue eyes bore into him with a silent inquiry and he shrugs helplessly.

And fully without his consent he begins to cry.

He couldn't say why. His heart burns and a guilt is heaving through his body. There's weeks of a strange loneliness and a self-loathing building up and an unrelenting feeling of relief mixed with apprehension.

He can't put words to it.

He can't be comforted and he cries until there are no tears left and he's left heaving for breathe over his own incomprehensible despair.

When he's alone in the privacy of his own bed he thinks that maybe he'll still say hi to Karen here and there, she was much nicer than his own younger sibling, and maybe he'd try to join Kenny in the corner when the guy is being weirdly standoffish.

Maybe he'll get to know Kevin too.

Ike ends up making it hard. The normally patient boy finally loses it with their troublemaking father and Kyle has to be there to play peacemaker.

He finds himself ultimately agreeing with Ike but he doesn't want his home destroyed. He clings to something meaningless in the hopes of maintaining a status quo he can't understand.

When Ike cries, for the first time in years, a fire burns in him and he ends up making matters worse.

When his own household is a storm of angry yelling and glass shattering, Kyle takes Ike to the park.

"Should we go somewhere?" Ike kicks the dirt as he speaks, nudging his swing to the side.

Kyle thinks it over, "Wanna go to Kenny's?"

It's the closest place, he reasons, it would be cool for Karen and Ike to meet, he thinks, he hasn't seen Kenny much lately, he bemoans.

Ike shrugs, "Sure."

The McCormick household is also powered by the sounds of angry yelling but he doesn't bother even knocking, instead climbing up to the second floor of the old sodasopa. He might have gaps in his knowledge of Kenny McCormick but he did know the boy hung out up here.

The three McCormick siblings are there. Playing Magic of all things. Ike wants to be dealed in and now Kevin and Ike are in the throws a fight to the death.

Kyle breathes uneasily.

"What brings you here?"

Kenny's voice is soft and close.

Kyle closes his eyes, "The hope that you aren't dead."

It's not what he meant to say at all. It still spills out and Kenny's laugh tickles the air.

"I wouldn't put our money on it." he jokes and Karen is challenging winner, riveted on the match between Ike and Kevin.

"I miss you, when you do."

His eyes are closed and somehow that makes it easier to say confusing words.

"So does Stan." he adds, carefully.

A gloved hand clutches his own.

"Good to know."

"Can't you stay?"

There's the sound of a part of the ceiling crumbling under the pressures of poor construction and time.

Kenny squeezes his hand, "No can do."

A crashing noise and the grip goes limp but Kyle keeps holding it tightly, eyes clenched shut and tears he doesn't understand escaping.

Someone save Kenny.

Someone killed Kenny.

Someone please save Kenny.

"Please be at school tomorrow."

He isn't. Nor the day after that.

The third day he rises and Kyle doesn't quite understand why he makes a Jesus joke, but Kenny cracks a smile and gives his shoulder a squeeze before greeting Stan.

The feel of the hand on his shoulder remains for a time after and he looks at the joking boys.

Eyes trained on Kenny and listening for the sounds of his giggles.

There's a flush in the orange clad boys cheeks and Stan nudges his stomach and now Kyle's the one being weirdly standoffish. He ought to join the two of them.

He will but he just wants to look a bit longer. In his own way, Kenny was quite pretty. Definitely nice to look at.

Oh.

He could hit himself at how silly he'd been. He was an asshole and an idiot.

He likes Kenny McCormick.

Huh, he tossed the thought around in his mind for a minute to consider the ramifications of it and his approach to the situation.

Well, clearly, there was no future in these prospects so it would be best if he put them to the side and ignored the,

Hm, he didn't like how that consideration made him feel.

"Kyle, are you coming?"

"Yeah, hold up, I'm trying to figure out if I should tell Kenny I like him or not." he didn't really think before speaking, or more accurately he was thinking too much internally to censor his own speech from honesty.

" _Dude_."

"What?"

Kyle looks up and it's just Stan and his heart drops, he can hear words of death approaching his ears but they never make it.

His eyes are darting the snow paved ground for splashes of red and he has no idea why. Stan's saying something but he doesn't want to hear it.

"I'm thinking I shouldn't say anything," he speaks over Stan, trying to remember what he'd been talking about over the panic, "It would only cause trouble. On the other hand, I think I really like him."

Stan slaps his face and walks away muttering darkly to himself.

"Asshole," Kyle rolls his eyes, ready to catch up but warm arms are wrapping around him from behind.

He can feel Kenny's forehead on his shoulder and see the orange arms of the parka around his waist.

"Why would it cause trouble?"

Huh, this was probably what Stan had been trying to warn him about. Now that he thought about it the words had sounded something like 'behind you'.

Kyle shrugs, not sure if words are enough.

He's pretty sure he can hear Clyde walking past making comments but that's not a problem he needs to worry about at the moment.

A few more minutes because hugs are nice and hugs from Kenny have now become his favorite thing ever.

There's the sound of something searing through the sky and Kenny pushes him away.

Kyle closes his eyes and tries to focus his thoughts. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd say hi and maybe he'd tell Kenny and maybe they'd get milkshakes after school.

Today he'd clean the splatters of red from his jacket and visit Karen at her part-time job.

Today he'd wonder if Kenny ditched him or died and debate seriously which one hurt more.

Today he'd keep his eyes close because it was only behind his eyelids that he could clearly recall the sounds of every bone breaking in Kenny's battered body.

Today, he'd be just a bit standoffish.

 


End file.
